Shivraj Singh Chouhan matches Narendra Modi’s hat-trick, emerges a counterweight

BHOPAL: Two years ago, Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan strolled into a BJP meeting at a crowded auditorium in Guwahati alone, unnoticed. All eyes were on Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, his entry creating a flutter with the media scrambling after him.

The Guwahati meeting was emblematic of how Modi had rapidly risen to become a Who’s Who of Indian politics, but Chouhan still evoked a Who? The difference in personas of the two BJP leaders — Modi is the politician about town while Chouhan affects a low-key approach — and the development models pursued by each in their states are stark.

This difference had become a solid foundation for Modi’s baiters in BJP, especially LK Advani, to present Chouhan as a foil to Modi. Chouhan has led his party to power for a third term in the state, like Modi did in Gujarat last year. At 54, he is eight years younger than Modi was when he led BJP to another win.

The comparisons between Modi and Chouhan had subsided with the declaration of Modi as BJP’s prime ministerial candidate but now they are certain to resurface. For his part, Chouhan has often fended off murmurs of such ambitions, describing himself as an ordinary worker.

Chouhan is indeed the quintessential “I am one of you” politician. Nowhere was this more evident than the recent Jan Ashirwad Yatra. Once he stepped out of a bus to mingle with the crowds, he became one of them. A party functionary said Chouhan may feel awkward in a TV studio but was most comfortable among crowds.

It is this image that turned out to be Chouhan’s strength after the Congress projected Jyotiraditya Scindia as CM candidate. Even the Congress’ strategy of releasing a ‘charge sheet’ against his government, listing 17 scams, made little impact.

BJP vice-president Prabhat Jha says Chouhan “is a polite politician who has always tried to work among the poor”.

Chouhan is also an astute politician. Seeing that Modi’s overtures to Muslims were hurt when he refused to wear a skull cap, Chouhan did not think twice before sporting it on Eid-ul-fitr this year.